history

Ancient Egypt

Upper and Lower Egypt

What is the geography of the Nile?

What can we see about the Nile Valley?

Nile flows from the south, to the north

Upper Egypt is in the South, Lower Egypt is in the North

Nile and its banks

Gifts of the Nile

�  Location

�  Annual flooding �  Reliable �  Irrigation �  Restores nutrients

�  Security

Egyptian Dynasties

�  King Narmer (Menes) �  Conquer Lower Egypt �  3100 BCE First Dynasty

�  3000 years of dynasties!

�  Horus: symbol of unity �  Son of Osiris and Isis

Hieroglyphs

�  Hieroglyphs predated the unification 3200 BCE

�  Uses: �  predict harvest (astronomy) �  tax peasantry (economy) �  record names and deeds of kings (history, politics, religion)

�  In tombs, temples, statues

�  On papyrus and leather scrolls

�  Ostraca

Kom Ombo: Horace and Sobek

Crocodile mummy

Government

�  Pharaoh: �  Divine �  Responsible for Nile flooding

�  Centralized: �  Large educated civil service �  Scribes and tax collectors

�  Peasants �  Tax �  Communal projects

Trade

�  Gold, Nubia

�  Ebony, ivory, ostrich feathers

�  Imported Lebanese cedar (timber), spices, incense, precious stones from Asia

Security

�  1670 BCE needed standing army

�  Hyskos �  bronze weapons �  chariots

�  1570 BCE drove out Hyskos, unified lower Egypt again

Religion and art

�  Art and architecture related to religion

�  Re = sun god

�  Amun = wind god

�  Middle kingdom combined : Amun-Re

�  Tomb maintenance essential for well-being

Pyramids

�  Old Kingdom, 3rd-4th dynasties

�  Near capital Memphis

�  Required: �  Control of labor �  Bureaucracy �  Engineering and mathematics

�  Workers village: well cared for workforce

�  Association with Ra, sun god

Khufu’s pyramid 2550 BCE

Tutankhamun’s tomb

�  In valley of the kings (Thebes) near Luxor

�  18th Dynasty

�  Why do we know about Tutankhamun?

Women

�  Legally free

�  Evidence: �  Art �  Court documents

�  Women right to inherit, buy and sell property, make legal contracts, borrow and lend, initiate a court case

�  fiction

�  Sexually free

Functional Art

�  Commissioned: temples or tombs

�  Artists as craftsmen, follow convention �  Stylized, ideal of beauty �  Colors:

�  Black: fertile soil, regeneration �  Green: dead, new life in death

�  Women �  Thinner �  Lighter skin (less time outside)

Skin Color: All Races

All Races, Black Queen

Gendered Ideal of Beauty

�  Men: fat, shows wealth

�  fat = power

�  Women svelt �  Exception: Queen of Punt

Women rulers

�  Queen Meryt Neith (1st Dynasty)

�  Queen Nitocris (6th Dynasty)

�  Queen Sobeknofru (12th Dynasty)

�  Queen Hatchepsut (18th Dynasty)

�  Queen Nefertiti (18th Dynasty)

�  Queen Twosret (19th Dynasty)

Queen Meryt Neith (1st Dynasty)

�  Not in king lists �  No Horus �  Had funeral stela �  Had two tombs �  Had solar boat �  Originally thought man: king �  Realized woman, reclassified

Queen Nitocris

(6th Dynasty)

�  Herodotus and Manetho wrote about her

�  Turin Canon

�  No monument or tomb

�  Stories: �  Beautiful �  Husband-brother Metasouphis II was murdered,

banquet suspects, killed self

Queen Sobeknofru (12th Dynasty)

�  Turin Canon

Queen Twosret (19th Dynasty)

�  Tomb and funerary temple

�  wiped her name and image off the walls

Queen Hatchepsut

(18th Dynasty)

�  Tombs �  For consort �  For pharaoh

�  Suckled by Hathor: proof of divine nature �  Daughter of Amun

�  Tomb art destroyed after death

�  Represented with beard, symbolically male

Hatchepsut’s tomb

Hatchepsut suckled by Hathor

Hatchepsut destruction

Queen Nefertiti (18th Dynasty)

�  Clothing style change

�  King Akhenaten portrayed as more feminine

�  Nefertiti: appears as co-regent �  active role in proceedings �  wearing monarch’s blue crown �  doing job of king

�  Nefertiti disappears �  co-ruler Prince Smenkhare?

Nefertiti